Constructive Senate Reform Ideas from Freshman Senator Michael Bennet

This is worth watching multiple times and even better making Senators pay attention to Senator Bennet’s ideas to reform how the Senate works:

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rE_0X-0fwHI[/youtube]

The broad outline here includes:

Salaries, Spending, and Perk

* Freeze congressional member pay until there are 4 quarters of job growth
* Freeze congressional office budgets until there are 4 quarters of job growth
* End the health care subsidy for Members of Congress until health care reform passes and eliminates discrimination based on pre-existing conditions, doesn’t cut guaranteed Medicare benefits, increases coverage, and is fully paid for
* Require full payment for the seat and disclose of those traveling with a Member of Congress on a charter jet

Lobbying Reform

* Put a lifetime ban on Members of Congress becoming lobbyists
* Ban congressional staff from lobbying their former boss for 6 years
* Ban former committee staff from lobbying their former boss or any member of the committee who was active during their time on staff for 6 years
* Ban lobbyists from joining congressional staff or committee staff for 6 years
* Create stricter rules for lobbyist registration
* Institute penalties for failing to register as a lobbyist

Earmark Reform

* Ban earmarks to private, for-profit companies and institutions.
* Make earmarks transparent
* Members of Congress must report all earmark requests they receive and all earmarks requests made
* Earmarks.gov should list all earmarks requests, sortable by member of Congress
* Hold Members of Congress accountable on earmark requests
* All earmark requests above $1 million should go before the Appropriations Committee
* Hold earmarks recipients accountable
* Each year, a certain percent of all earmarks will be audited to ensure that taxpayer money is being spent wisely. These reports should be made public on earmkarks.gov{sic}

Reform the Floor

* Eliminate anonymous holds
* Require holds to be bipartisan. If not, the hold expires in 2 days. Even bi-partisan holds expire in 30 days.
* Reform the filibuster in the Senate
* After 3rd failed cloture vote, the minority must find a member of the opposite party or the threshold raises to 45 votes.
* After the 3rd cloture vote, if the majority finds support from three members of the minority, it raises to 45 votes.
* End the filibuster for motion to proceed
* Require 41 Senators to show up to vote in order to block cloture, or else it’s invoked

Campaign Finance Reform

* Support the Schumer/Van Hollen campaign finance bill, which would require Chief Executive Officers to stand by their ads, quick disclosure and sunshine rules, restrictions on foreign corporations and TARP recipients, and codifying coordination rules.
* Support a constitutional amendment allowing Congress to regulate contributions and expenditures.

This is excellent in every category — requiring more accountability by the Senators and their staffs. I’d like to see more effort to neutralize the lobbyists extant, but Senator Bennet gets an A for effort here.